Food Security

My apologies, you'll not be getting a detailed report on the Gummer Goldsmith report from me. More than 500 pages of that stuff is simply too much for me. However, as others offer details from it, my astonishment increases. From The Telegraph today:

...reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to encourage self-sufficiency in food production...

This is that oh so fashionable idea of food security coming through. But the basic problem is that "food security" and "self-sufficiency" are opposites of each other. You remember just a few months back, the floods? The stories of farmers bewailing their ruined crops? Back when people truly were self-sufficient in their food supplies, this would have meant starvation. Now it means a blip in prices. As the Bacon Butty blog points out:

Trade is the basis of food security.

If we want to have food security then we want as many different sources as possible, based in as many different political and geographic zones as possible. Aiming for self-sufficiency actually increases our food insecurity.